U.S. Healthcare Failing Grade Hits Home

Ya Gotta Wonder! 

Today, U.S. Healthcare ranks dead-last—Bottom of the Class*—among the most privileged countries in the world.

Our Worst-in-Show Report Card just got personal.

I have been diagnosed with a potentially deadly disease. Deadly now because for six months I wandered around the American Healthcare Desert being either misdiagnosed or waiting endless amounts of time for crucial test reports. Without these reports no doctor could help me. Only watch me die.

Final reports in hand, I’ve now secured a spot in the lengthy queue to get the surgeries I need to save my life. Treatments that may leave me disfigured, blind, deaf, and with permanent cognitive impairment.

Here’s the kicker…had our healthcare system worked, a quick out-patient procedure would have fixed the initial problem and saved the system thousands of dollars, and me the kind of disabling impairments that may become part of my daily life.

Some nights, in my darkest moments, I wonder if it would be a tender mercy to die on the operating table rather than take the enforced post-operative march that lies ahead. Of course, there is someone in my life who I don’t want to miss growing old with, no matter my condition, so I’ve just tossed that outcome into the mental trash bin where it belongs and focus on the love this person brings to my life. And, as we all know, Love is the greatest healer. Even a healthcare system gone rogue can’t trump the power of Love. That Love and the prayers of friends give me the courage to fight to keep doing what I love to do. Writing this blog, publishing another book, perhaps about the healthcare journey I’ve now begun, and beating the odds my doctors have given me. And, once all the surgeries are behind me, being able to do the podcast I’ve always want to do…talking to people about what makes them say to themselves, “Ya Gotta Wonder!”

Right now I have a suggestion for President Biden and Congress…it’s not just our bridges that need rebuilding. Build Back Better should mean that any Infrastructure Bill the Federal government passes has as its TOP PRIORITY the rebuilding of the American Healthcare System. Because Ya Gotta Wonder! how America, a nation once revered for its efficiency, landed in this healthcare state.

* https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2021-08-09/us-ranks-last-among-11-wealthy-nations-for-health-care-study-says#:~:text=By%20Horus%20Alas-,Aug.,2021%2C%20at%206%3A00%20a.m.&text=The%20U.S.%20is%20the%20worst,think%20tank%20The%20Commonwealth%20Fund.